One evening I finally asked. The Sox were on. It was a balmy summer night. "Uh, Jay, how'd you get the bullet hole in the TV set?"

He chuckled.

"You don't wanna know."

The TV worked fine, by the way. The Sox did not, at least that night.

Jay Geils seemed to me to exist in the perfect suburban subterranean cave -- his basement. Sure, he would show up at the Bull Run to catch a show or jam. And he seemed to have his own booth at Gibbet Hill Grill.

But the basement? Everything was right there. The big-screen TV offered the hometown team, pro tennis and the Speed Channel. The records were down there, the home studio, the walls adorned with guitars. Some car things.

Jay Geils, left, and singer Peter Wolf perform at the Fleet Boston Pavilion in Boston during a J. Geils Band reunion show in August 2011. Geils died at his Groton home Tuesday. He was 71. Faith Ninivaggi / The Boston Herald via AP

And if he leaned back, he could pop open the door to the garage and look at his babies. They had names. Maserati, Ferrari, Fiat, Alfa.

It was an un-fancy room beneath an un-fancy house. It smelled of cigarettes.

He never seemed like a rock star.

My son called me Tuesday night to tell me they'd found Jay unresponsive at home. I was sad, yes. But not terribly shocked.

I also thought, I confess, that I hoped he was comfortable, in the basement.

I just hope he didn't die lonely.

John "Jay" Geils Jr. (he was never "Jerome" he would say in frustration -- that was an onstage Peter Wolfism that stuck) loved music and cars for nearly all of his 71 years. He played guitar for one of the biggest bands of the '70s and early '80s, which bore his name.

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He was good at it. Live, you had to see them explode. But the slick hybrid of synth-flecked rock and R&B that later lifted the band to chart-topping fame was hardly his passion.

He loved the blues and early jazz. They were his framework. He played trumpet before guitar, beginning at 8, in suburban New Jersey. In eighth grade, he subscribed to Downbeat, the jazz bible. He didn't pick up guitar until high school.

His dad, an engineer at Bell Labs, loved swing music. And cars.

Jay Geils on stage at The Bull Run in Shirley in 2011. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Libby

They never had a repairman in the house. John Geils could fix anything. He set the stage for Jay's dueling passions.

When the band toured Europe as opener for the Rolling Stones, Jay used his cachet for a private tour of the Ferrari plant.

When the Geils band split, Jay retreated to KRT Motorsports in Ayer, restoring high-performance foreign cars.

We met 25 years ago. I was a reporter. I heard he'd been popping up at a Groton spot to jam with locals.

I got a call one day from Jim Donnelly, the Geils band's original road manager. Jay has a new project he's ready to talk about, Jim said. We met for lunch at a spot in Ayer.

It went well.

Jay called to thank me for the story. That never happens.

When that project took shape in the form of Bluestime with Magic Dick, we met over lunch in Cambridge.

It went well.

Jay was smart. Engineer smart. Like his dad, fix-your-own-car smart.

He was shy. People sometimes took it for aloofness.

He was generous. When I told him I had just opened an all-vinyl record store, he said he would put together a few stacks of his records for the cause. I never reminded him. I wish I had.

He was loyal. When the J. Geils Band reunited in 1999, he called me at the office.

"You've always been fair to me," he said. "I want to make sure you get the first interview for this."

Nor did he ever forget his idols.

When B.B. King played Lowell Memorial Auditorium in the early '90s, I made sure I was sitting next to Jay. He was giddy about the show. Backstage, the two men met. Jay smiled the entire time. His holy trinity of guitarists was King, T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian.

After Bluestime, Jay headed deep into his jazz roots. Christian, the Count, the Duke. The TV would be on and he'd have at least one guitar within reach in the basement, always.

I wrote the liner notes for the subsequent CD, "Jay Geils Plays Jazz." It's my favorite work of his. The cover art was a nod to Cannonball Adderly's Somethin' Else.

He played in New Guitar Summit with Duke Robillard and Gerry Beaudoin.

We had talked about a book. In July 2014, we discussed it over dinner.

It would tell the truth but not the dirt, he insisted. He even had the title: "Jay Geils, An American Life in Music and Italian Cars."

He ordered club soda. He told me about a DUI in Groton. He was sober now, he said.

He looked healthy.

Of course I wanted to write his story. I had a record store now, my day job.

"When you're ready," he said.

We headed to his house. He showed off his new garage space. The guitars on walls of the basement had been replaced with horns. Trumpets. Aside his chair in front of the TV was a horn. He blew some jazz, imperfectly.

"Still getting my lip," he said.

The second DUI happened last Sept. 22.

I texted: Your friends are here when you need them. Please take care of yourself?

"Are you still interested in helping me write a book? I still have your album cover books. JG"

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